PETER Kilfoyle has announced he will quit parliament at the general election, declaring it was time to be “watching the wheels go round”.

The Walton MP brought down the curtain on a colourful and controversial 19-year Westminster career, telling his party members everyone reached a point where they needed to “step aside”.

He followed in the footsteps of fellow Merseyside MPs Jane Kennedy, Stephen Hesford, Ben Chapman and Claire Curtis-Thomas in choosing to stand down.

Mr Kilfoyle revealed he planned to fly to Australia, to trace the history of a distant cousin Tom Kilfoyle, who founded a cattle station deep in the Outback.

But the 63-year-old left-winger declined to discuss his plans for the future and gave few clues to his reasons for following scores of other MPs out of parliament.

In a letter which party members will receive today, Mr Kilfoyle wrote: “I have been considering my position for some time and have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to go.

“Did I succeed? Only you know that – and, even then, how do you measure success in politics? Much of political life is an illusion, to both the participant and the observer.

“There comes a time, if one is sensible, to step aside and spend some time watching the wheels go round. That time has come for me.”

His words were a nod to John Lennon and his hit single Watching The Wheels from someone who played at the Cavern Club as a Merseybeat fan in the 1960s.

His decision was a major surprise, given that just last month Mr Kilfoyle hit back angrily at Liverpool Labour leader Joe Anderson’s suggestion some people thought he was “past his sell-by date”.

That clash followed the Walton MP’s attack on youthful Wavertree candidate Luciana Berger as a “student politician”.

In recent years, Mr Kilfoyle has called for the toppling of the American owners of Liverpool FC, attacked the city-region as toothless and accused Cherie Blair of inventing a poverty-stricken childhood in the city.

He also fought an eight-year battle for an inquiry into how notorious gangsters John Haase and Paul Bennett were let out of jail. They are now back behind bars.

In 2006, he nearly died after suffering a second heart attack and undergoing a quadruple bypass. He immediately vowed to change his ways by giving up smoking and taking up walking, including across Nicaragua.

Before that, Mr Kilfoyle hounded Tony Blair over the invasion of Iraq and over what he saw as creeping privatisation of public services.

The dad-of-five, a former teacher who dropped out of university to work as a building labourer, refused to back Gordon Brown for the leadership, saying: “I can’t vote for anybody who voted for the war.”

Mr Kilfoyle’s letter insists he always sought to “represent the interests of my constituents and the other people of the city”.

It adds: “As a Labour MP, it is right to think and to act according to the values, policies and traditions of the Labour Party, rather than some passing fancy.”